http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
THE PICTURE OF SMALL JEWISH CHILDREN fleeing a Jewish Community Center
under attack from a maniacal gun-toting hater will live forever in the
memory of American Jewry.

That image is indelibly imprinted on our hearts and will likely recur every
time we see a child dropped off at a Jewish institution.

Yes, anti-Semitism is still alive and well, even in America, where 11
members of the U.S. Senate identify as Jews. Buford O. Furrow Jr., the
white supremacist with a history of mental problems who shot up a Los
Angeles-area JCC proved that it is alive. As did the evil creatures who
recently burned a few Sacramento, Calif., synagogues and the authors of
other such incidents large and small.

But as we recover from our shock and pain at the pictures of those
vulnerable children, we must also ask ourselves a serious question: Does
one nut with a gun dictate the American Jewish agenda?

TIME OUT FROM HYSTERIA
While there can be no debate about the priority that community institutions
must give to security, it is worthwhile pausing amid the hysteria about
neo-Nazis and guns to ask ourselves whether we truly believe anti-Semitism
remains a serious domestic concern for American Jews.

If the answer is yes, then we should take a deep breath and think again. At
a time when barriers to Jewish success in politics, business, the arts or
any other sector of society have utterly collapsed, one violent episode -
no matter how disturbing - should not distract us from our real problems,
which have more to do with assimilation and ignorance of our heritage than
with Nazis.

It is important to remember this, because the consequences of letting a
fear of anti-Semitism and the accompanying self-image of Jews as victims
determine our view of the world are enormous.

Why? Because we have other problems we need to focus on that point to a
more serious threat to the future of American Jewry. They are Jewish
assimilation, disaffiliation and downright apathy. They are about the
startling ignorance of Judaism and the inability of many American Jews to
transmit Jewish values and identity to their children. They are about a
shrinking community that is losing interest in Israel and cannot sustain
itself on bagels-and-lox Judaism.

The remedies have to do with increased funding for Jewish education and
reinforcing institutions that sustain a community based on faith and a
shared destiny. They are about working to build a community that is not
based on fear of Jew-hatred, but on creating a positive rationale for
retaining our Jewish identity.

These other problems don't generate sexy headlines or produce Pulitzer
Prize-winning action photos. And you can't scare people into caring about
them by mentioning Louis Farrakhan or some white supremacist equivalent of
the Nation of Islam.

And that's the real problem here. It's easy enough to whip up interest in a
Jewish issue if it is connected to our fear of anti-Semitism or even our
far-more-justified concern about Israel's security. Yet it's difficult to
focus public attention on the day-to-day work of promoting American Jewish
continuity.

THE MOST SUCCESSFUL IDEOLOGY
Jew-hatred has festered inside the heart of Western civilization from its
very origins in antiquity, and has persisted in and out of the culture's
mainstream ever since. Writer Ruth Wisse wisely referred to it in an essay
in Commentary magazine as the century's most successful ideology, since it
was a major factor in both Nazism and Communism, yet survived them both.

Those who follow events in post-Soviet Russia know the power of Jew-hatred,
as do those who read the official newspapers and school curricula in places
like Egypt and those lands administered by the Palestinian Authority.

Only a generation ago, 2,000 years of Jew-hatred culminated in the
Holocaust, which surely confirmed to all but the most unreasoning optimists
the truth of the line in the Passover Haggadah that says, "In every
generation, they rise against us."

In the post-Holocaust United States, Jew-hatred has persisted, but only on the
margins of society, where a desperate few fantasize about fighting against
the "ZOG" - the "Zionist Occupation Government" - that in their fevered
imagination is the "real" power running the country. Elsewhere, for all of
its virulence, anti-Semitism usually has to masquerade as anti-Zionism to
survive.

The growing legitimacy of Louis Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam among
African-Americans is troubling, as is the acceptance enjoyed by a
mainstream political figure like Pat Buchanan,despite his open embrace of
anti-Semitic rhetoric and positions.

FOCUS ON REALITY, NOT FEAR
But looking at the world as a place where every non-Jew is a potential, if
not an actual, enemy of the Jews is not a view of reality in 1999 America.
Sometimes, it is hard to take yes for an answer. Most Jews I have met who
grew up on the East Coast still tend to think that non-Jews who live
anywhere west of the Alleghenies are scary hayseeds who marry their cousins
and would kill us all if only they could figure out how. And the
unjustified fear of religious Christian conservatives is apalling. That
there are still hideous neo-Nazis out there who seldom wash behind their
ears and want to do us harm is not news. But the fact that most non-Jewish
Americans feel as threatened by these evil lunatics as Jews do has somehow
not penetrated our consciousness.

The reaction to the California shooting has been strong and, in many
respects, entirely positive. The outpouring of sympathy and the public
revulsion against the shooter tell us far more about America than any
sensationalized account of the crime or a report compiling lists of
anti-Semitic incidents.

Law-enforcement agencies do need to work harder to monitor hate groups
closely and prosecute them whenever they commit crimes. Personally, I don't
think that means we need new hate-crime laws, and I doubt the panacea of
more gun control will make much of a difference in these cases. But that
isn't the issue here.

Jewish institutions may need to take security seriously, but that should
not be an excuse for drifting back into believing in the old paradigms that
saw combating anti-Semitism as the focus of our communal efforts and
resources.

French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in his book "Anti-Semite and Jew"
that in the absence of anti-Semitism, there was no reason for Jews to
remain Jewish. It is the duty of American Jewry, a community that faces
none of the challenges that once afflicted European Jews,to prove Sartre
wrong.

Focusing on anti-Semitism in America as we approach the 21st century is
still largely an exercise in chasing ghosts. That can be a satisfying and
even profitable endeavor for Jewish groups, but it is not an answer for the
future.

JWR contributor Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent. Let him know what you think by clicking here.